NLRB will impound ballots in election to remove UFCW while issue is decided

Washington, DC (June 25, 2020) – In a recently issued order, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) announced that it will review its so-called “contract bar” doctrine, which prevents employees from exercising their right to vote an unpopular union out of their workplace for up to three years if union officials and their employer have finalized a monopoly bargaining contract.

The “contract bar” is not provided for in the text of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), which the NLRB administers, but is the result of past Board decisions in favor of union bosses.

This is the latest development in a case by a Delaware-based Mountaire Farms poultry employee, Oscar Cruz Sosa, against the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 27 union. Cruz Sosa submitted a petition for a vote on whether Local 27 should be removed as monopoly bargaining agent in his workplace. The petition was signed by more than the number of workers necessary to trigger such a vote.

Cruz Sosa also filed federal unfair labor practice charges in April against the union for illegally seizing dues from his and other employees’ paychecks, as well as threatening him after he submitted the decertification petition to remove the union. He is receiving free legal representation from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.

UFCW officials argued after the petition’s filing that the “contract bar” should block Cruz Sosa and his coworkers from even having an election, because the monopoly bargaining agreement between Mountaire and the union had been signed less than three years earlier. The NLRB Regional Director held that the vote should proceed because the union agreement contains an unlawful forced dues clause that mandates workers immediately pay union dues upon hiring or be fired, in violation of a statutory 30-day grace period. Despite the longstanding precedent supporting the Regional Director’s ruling, UFCW union lawyers filed a Request for Review asking the full NLRB to overrule the Regional Director.

Cruz Sosa’s National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys opposed the union’s efforts to block the vote, and argued that if the Board were to grant the union’s Request for Review it should also reconsider the entire “contract bar” policy, which has no statutory basis in the NLRA. The Foundation’s legal brief noted that the contract bar runs counter to the rights of workers under the NLRA, which explicitly include the right to vote out a union a majority of workers oppose. The brief also notes that the idea of a “contract bar” was rejected by the original NLRB when the NLRA was passed.

Late Tuesday, just hours after the voting process in the decertification election had begun, the NLRB issued its order accepting the Foundation’s argument that the entire “contract bar” doctrine should be reviewed. The order noted “that it is appropriate for the Board to undertake in this case a general review of its contract bar doctrine.”
The Board’s order also stayed the election while the Request for Review was pending, but after Foundation staff attorneys submitted a motion asking the NLRB to modify its order so the vote could proceed with the ballots impounded, the Board issued another order late Wednesday allowing the vote to go forward.

“The ‘contract bar’ has for decades allowed union officials to trap workers in a union a majority of them oppose for up to three years merely because the employer and union finalized a contract between themselves,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “We urge the NLRB to swiftly overturn this outrageous non-statutory policy, as it actively undermines the free choice of workers that is supposed to be at the center of federal labor law.”

“The very premise of the NLRB-created contract bar, that union bosses should be insulated from worker decertification efforts, is completely backwards,” added Mix. “Union officials use all types of tactics to get workers into unions but rely on government power to not let them get out.”

Just latest in chain of charges against multiple Seattle SEIU unions, all concern roadblocks to letting workers exercise workplace rights

Seattle, WA (June 17, 2020) – Pacific Building Services employee Daniel Dalison has filed federal charges against Service Employees International Union (SEIU6) Property Services NW for violating his rights by maintaining deceiving membership forms that misinform workers about their rights. He is also charging both the union and Pacific Building Services with deducting dues illegally from his paycheck, even though he has never authorized any deductions and objected to union membership and paying union fees beyond the amount that can be required as a condition of employment.

Because Washington State has not enacted Right to Work protections for its private sector employees, they can still be forced to pay fees to a union as a condition of getting or keeping a job. However, for employees who object to formal union membership, this amount is limited by the Foundation-won CWA v. Beck Supreme Court decision to just the portion of union dues that is directly related to bargaining purposes, and cannot include union political and lobbying activities. Beck also requires that unions follow certain procedures before taking forced fees from nonmember paychecks, including providing an independent audit of the union’s expenses.

Dalison filed his charges at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) with free legal aid from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys. The charges state he was hired by Pacific Building Services in May 2020 and was given an information packet from SEIU6 the same month.

The charge states that SEIU6’s welcome packet incorrectly informed Dalison that he couldn’t exercise his Beck right to object to full union dues outside the 31-day window after his hire date. On top of that, Dalison’s charge explains that the membership form included in the packet is an illegal “dual purpose” form, which, if signed, triggers automatic dues seizures from an employee’s paycheck despite “actually say[ing] nothing about dues authorization.” Federal law provides that employers cannot deduct union dues or fees directly from employees’ paychecks unless they have affirmative consent from them, regardless of their membership status.

After receiving the information packet, Dalison sent the union letters “stating that he did not want union membership” and wished only to pay the required fees to keep his job. He also asked the union to furnish an independent audit of its expenses and a copy of the monopoly bargaining contract between it and Pacific Building Services. The charge says that the union responded with a letter claiming “he must have misunderstood his options” and that its records showed he was a member and must pay full dues.

Despite never assenting to union membership and submitting objection letters, Dalison’s charge reports that full dues were deducted from his paycheck on June 8, 2020. His charge contends that this violates his right under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) “to refrain from any or all” union activities. His charge also seeks an injunction under Section 10(j) of the NLRA to force the SEIU and employer to immediately stop the activities described in the charges while the NLRB investigates.

Earlier this year Dalison charged officials of SEIU 1199NW for violating employee rights at Swedish Medical Center, where he has also worked. Those charges related that, in addition to not allowing workers to exercise their Beck rights, SEIU 1199NW bosses ordered workers to provide photo identification any time they asked to see their own paperwork regarding membership and dues check off authorizations. Those charges are still pending at NLRB Region 19.

“Within just a few months, Seattle SEIU bosses have proved repeatedly that they will violate the rights of the workers they claim to represent just to illegally siphon dues from employee paychecks,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “NLRB Region 19, which is now knee-deep in pending employee charges revealing the brazen tactics of coercion engaged in by these union bosses, must immediately seek an injunction to protect workers from these egregious schemes.”

Teamsters Local 175 bosses illegally cut deal in which union stewards got pay raise unavailable to other workers

Fairmont, WV (June 16, 2020) – A National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) regional office based in Pittsburgh issued a complaint against Teamsters Local 175 for discriminating against employees by giving a pay increase only to union stewards. NLRB Region 6’s complaint was issued in response to unfair labor practice charges from a former employee at Genesis HealthCare Tygart Center in Fairmont, WV. The former nursing assistant is receiving free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.

This new NLRB Region 6 complaint comes while an appeal to an imposed settlement in a linked case against the Tygart Center on the grounds that it fails to compensate the employees who were denied the additional pay per hour given to union stewards is pending.

According to this new complaint from NLRB Region 6 against Local 175, Donna Harper and her coworkers signed Teamsters membership and dues checkoff authorization forms that contained confusing language and failed to “clearly inform signers that they are permitted to revoke dues deduction authorization” when a union bargaining contract expires or whenever there is no such contract in effect.

Harper submitted a letter to the Teamsters union exercising her right to end her membership and cease union dues deductions in February 2019. Teamsters officials rejected this request, telling Harper that her submission was “untimely” and would need to be sent again at a later date to be accepted. Though Harper had asked the union for the time frame when she could tender her request to end membership and cut off dues, Teamsters officials never informed her of this, according to the complaint. The complaint says that Teamsters officials also did not timely reply to a second request Harper sent in March of 2019.

The union contract imposed by the Teamsters and Tygart Center contained a clause which read that employees who were union stewards as of July 2017 would “receive twenty-five cents ($0.25) per hour above their classified rate.” The complaint contends that Teamsters officials violated employee rights under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) through the pay discrimination, the treatment of Ms. Harper’s resignation and revocation, and the confusing checkoff language.

The complaint comes after the West Virginia Supreme Court unanimously upheld the state’s Right to Work protections, which ensure that no private or public sector worker can be forced to join or pay dues or fees to a union as a condition of employment. The law was the subject of a years-long legal attack by West Virginia union lawyers, including the West Virginia AFL-CIO. Foundation staff attorneys submitted ten legal briefs defending the law, including one for Harper.

“Teamsters union bosses, who misinformed Ms. Harper and her coworkers and were then caught red-handed discriminating against those in her workplace who were not union stewards, serve as just one more example of why Right to Work protections are necessary to safeguard employee rights in the Mountain State,” commented National Right to Work President Mark Mix. “Although the discrimination Ms. Harper charged Teamsters honchos with was blatantly illegal long before West Virginia enacted Right to Work, requiring union bosses to use persuasion and not coercion to win worker support will make them think twice before trying to enforce an illegal scheme under the radar.”

Mix added: “While the West Virginia Supreme Court was right in upholding the Right to Work law, it will take vigorous enforcement to ensure that rank-and-file employees like Ms. Harper are not subjected to these kinds of coercive tactics.”

Appeal asks PERB to eliminate standard which lets union bosses use unsubstantiated allegations to block employee votes

San Diego, CA (June 10, 2020) – Educators at Gompers Preparatory Academy (GPA) charter school are appealing a decision by a California Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) regional attorney, which let San Diego Education Association (SDEA) union bosses block the educators’ right to vote on whether the union should remain at the school. The educators, who submitted a valid petition to initiate a vote to remove the union, are led by chemistry teacher Dr. Kristie Chiscano. Dr. Chiscano and her fellow educators are receiving free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.

The appeal follows SDEA union officials’ so-called filing of “blocking charges” against the charter school. The union charges allege that school leadership committed unfair labor practices, and were accepted by the PERB administrator as a reason to stop the election to remove the union. This happened despite the union not alleging or proving any wrongdoing on the educators’ part, and despite the PERB never holding a hearing into whether the charges had any merit. The appeal seeks to overturn PERB Regulation 32752, which allows union bosses to “plead unproven ‘facts’ that a Board agent or attorney must accept as true” which “will almost always guarantee a secret-ballot election will be stayed (stopped).”

SDEA union officials were installed at the school in January 2019 after conducting a controversial “card check” union drive, bypassing the more reliable method of a secret-ballot election whether to certify a union as the monopoly representative of all educators in the school. Since the school’s unionization, no monopoly bargaining contract has been approved and educators and parents have accused union agents of divisive activity, including supporting anti-charter school legislation.

Dr. Chiscano began circulating the decertification petition in October 2019. She soon obtained the signatures of well over the number of her fellow educators necessary to trigger a PERB-supervised secret-ballot vote to remove the union. However, the appeal notes, SDEA union officials “filed a strategically-timed unfair practice charge against GPA in December 2019” to block the educators from exercising their right to vote on whether to remove the union. Despite the educators’ Foundation-provided attorneys submitting a brief explaining why SDEA bosses’ unsubstantiated allegations had nothing to do with the employees’ desire to vote, the PERB attorney stayed the election in May 2020.

The appeal asks that the PERB alter the standard used to process employee petitions for a decertification election because the current practice “is the antithesis of employee free choice” in that it grants union bosses the privilege to “block a secret-ballot election based on mere strategic pleading in an unproven unfair practice charge.”

Also pointed out is that, after a “blocking charge” is filed, “it becomes the employees’ and employer’s burden to show why the unproven allegations in the unfair practice charge would not affect the election process.”

The appeal proposes that the PERB adopt a new standard that requires union officials who file “blocking charges” to, during a hearing, prove a “causal nexus” between the unfair employer conduct they allege and “any effect on employees that would prevent them from making a free choice in a secret-ballot election.” Dr. Chiscano’s case, the appeal says, should be reconsidered under that standard.

“Dr. Chiscano and her coworkers just want to be able to exercise their right to vote, free of coercion, on whether or not SDEA union bosses deserve to maintain power at their school,” observed National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Instead of letting them vote, power-hungry SDEA union bosses who, ironically, oppose charter schools like GPA, have exploited the PERB’s anti-worker choice standards to hold these educators captive under their so-called ‘representation’ for more than 17 months.”

Mix added: “The PERB should immediately reform its standards to stop allowing union officials to use totally unproven allegations to block employees’ right to free themselves of an unwanted union.”

Union requires home healthcare providers to submit photo identification just to exercise constitutional right to stop union dues deductions

Chicago, IL (May 22, 2020) – An Illinois home healthcare provider has filed a federal class-action civil rights lawsuit against the SEIU Healthcare Illinois and Indiana union (SEIU-HCII), for seizing dues from her compensation without her affirmative consent, and for enforcing arbitrary restrictions on her right to cut off dues deductions. The lawsuit, filed with free legal aid from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys, charges the union with breaching home healthcare providers’ First Amendment rights under the Foundation-won Harris v. Quinn and Janus v. AFSCME Supreme Court decisions.

In Harris, won by Foundation staff attorneys in 2014, the High Court recognized that the First Amendment is violated by schemes to forcibly extract dues from home healthcare providers who assist individuals whose care is subsidized by the government. In the 2018 Janus decision, the Supreme Court struck down mandatory union fees for public sector workers as an infringement of their First Amendment rights, and ruled that the government can only deduct union dues or fees with an individual’s affirmative and knowing consent.

The plaintiff, Hydie Nance, provides home-based healthcare under the auspices of Illinois’ Home Services Plan. This program provides Medicaid funds to people with disabilities so they can hire and pay “personal assistants” to help them with their day-to-day activities. Nance’s complaint points out that the Illinois Department of Human Services (DHS) deducts union dues from these subsidies at the behest of SEIU-HCII union officials, and does so without notifying personal assistants “that they have a First Amendment right not to financially support SEIU-HCII.”

According to the complaint, Nance sent letters to both DHS and SEIU-HCII officials in November 2019 exercising her First Amendment right to end her union membership and cut off dues deductions. Both union and state officials ignored Nance’s attempt to exercise her rights and continued to deduct full union dues from her subsidies. The lawsuit also alleges that the dues deduction policy the state and SEIU-HCII enforce requires the DHS to “not respond to notices it receives from personal assistants to stop dues deductions unless and until SEIU-HCII instructs DHS to cease the deductions.”

Nance renewed her objection to union membership and dues deductions in March, the lawsuit says. While DHS again did not respond to the letter, SEIU-HCII officials sent an email acknowledging receipt of her request but claiming they “unfortunately cannot process it without your valid photo id,” instructing her to submit a picture of a photo ID in response to the message. SEIU-HCII bosses and DHS officials “do not notify personal assistants that they must submit a photo identification” unless union bosses reject a request to cut off dues, the lawsuit notes.

Nance’s complaint contends that this process “impedes and burdens personal assistants’ First Amendment right to stop subsidizing SEIU-HCII and its speech” and additionally “impinges on personal assistants’ right to privacy and exposes them to the threat of identity theft.” The lawsuit asks that the District Court declare unconstitutional SEIU-HCII’s continuing dues seizures after receiving written objections and that the court forbid enforcement of the policy. The complaint also requests that the union return to home healthcare providers all money it has seized illegally under the policy.

One of the attorneys representing Nance is William Messenger, a veteran National Right to Work Foundation staff attorney who argued and won the Janus and Harris cases at the Supreme Court. The lead plaintiff in the latter case, Pamela Harris, is also an Illinois home healthcare provider who filed suit with free legal aid from the Foundation after the SEIU sought to force her to pay union fees just for receiving state subsidies to care for her son in her own home.

“Individuals cannot be forced to produce a photo ID just to exercise their legal rights, nor does the state of Illinois need the permission of SEIU bosses before respecting the First Amendment rights of healthcare workers,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Years after the Supreme Court in Harris and later in Janus explicitly recognized the First Amendment right that home healthcare providers have to refuse to subsidize a union, SEIU union bosses and their allies in Illinois still are more interested in filling union coffers with forced dues than respecting the constitutional rights of those they claim to represent.”

Civil rights lawsuit seeks refunds of up to 15 years of dues seized illegally from workers, end to unconstitutional forced membership and dues scheme

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San Juan, PR (May 19, 2020) – With free legal representation from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys, two employees of the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) have filed a federal class-action civil rights lawsuit against the university and officials of the University of Puerto Rico Workers Union. The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Puerto Rico, charges union and university officials with forcing union membership and dues on employees in violation of their First Amendment rights.

The employees, Jose Ramos and Orlando Mendez, contend that union and university officials are infringing on their rights recognized in the 2018 Foundation-won Janus v. AFSCME Supreme Court decision. In Janus, the High Court ruled that requiring public employees to pay union dues as a condition of employment breaches the First Amendment, and further held that union fees can only be taken from public employees with an affirmative waiver of the right not to pay.

Mendez’ and Ramos’ complaint also alleges that the monopoly bargaining contract’s requirement that all employees become union members violates the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of association. The lawsuit says university and union officials also broke a contract provision that permits deduction of union dues from employee paychecks only after receiving authorization from employees.

The lawsuit recounts that Mendez and Ramos have been employed by the University as maintenance workers since 1997 and 1996, respectively. From then, the complaint says, university and union officials “have regarded Ramos and Mendez as members of the Union” and seized dues from their paychecks, despite neither ever having signed a union membership or dues deduction authorization form.

In July 2018, less than a month after the Janus decision was issued, Mendez and Ramos both sent letters to the union exercising their First Amendment right to end union membership and cut off dues deductions. The union ignored these requests, and the union and University ignored attempts by both men to renew those demands in March 2020, according to the lawsuit. The complaint says that the University continues to take full dues from their paychecks.

Mendez’ and Ramos’ lawsuit asks the U.S. District Court to declare unconstitutional the contract provisions forcing employees into both membership and dues payments, and to declare that union and university officials breached the monopoly bargaining contract by seizing dues from employee paychecks without written authorization. The lawsuit additionally seeks an order forbidding further enforcement of the unconstitutional schemes, and an order requiring the union to refund to employees dues that were seized illegally “within the…15-year statute of limitations period for breach of contract.”

“For years University of Puerto Rico Workers Union officials have been able to get away with trampling the rights of the workers they claim to represent, not only by illegally filling their coffers with forced dues in violation of Janus, but also by forcing employees into union membership, a practice that has always been unconstitutional,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “They must not be permitted to profit from their past malfeasance, and the Foundation is proud to stand with Mr. Mendez and Mr. Ramos as they fight for their rights and the rights of their coworkers.”

MINNEAPOLIS (May 11, 2020) – Today, six Minnesota state employees sued two of the state’s largest government unions for an estimated recovery of $19 million in union fees paid by state and local employees. The two class action lawsuits claim that because the U.S. Supreme Court ruled it is illegal to require public employees to pay union fees as a condition of employment, past fees should be refunded to workers.

The unions, AFSCME Council 5 and Minnesota Association of Professional Employees (MAPE) collected fees for years from workers who did not want to join a union. The lawsuit against AFSCME may net $13 million in recovered fees for 8,000 state and local workers who paid fees to the union prior to the 2018 Supreme Court ruling. The lawsuit against MAPE could recover as much as $5.8 million for state employees.

The two lawsuits, Brown et al., v. AFSCME Council 5 and Fellows et al., v. MAPE were filed today by attorneys from the same nonprofit legal foundations that brought the U.S. Supreme Court case ending forced union fees, the Liberty Justice Center and the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.

“From 1993 to 2018 I was forced to pay AFSCME union dues for a union I never wanted to join in order to work for the state of Minnesota,” said Eric Brown, lead plaintiff of the class action case against AFSCME. “It is time for AFSCME to abide by the Supreme Court’s ruling, return the money that was taken out of my paycheck without my permission, and return money to other Minnesota state employees who were victim to this as well.”

MAPE also took dues as a condition of employment from state workers, and three employees who have worked in a variety of roles are suing the union to reclaim their money.

Mark Fellows, a licensed social worker for the Department of Human Services paid fees from July 2007 through June 27, 2018, and said, “I joined this lawsuit because MAPE took money I didn’t want to pay and shouldn’t have been forced to pay. With the Supreme Court’s ruling, I should be entitled to get my money back.”

“Thousands of employees in Minnesota had millions of dollars illegally taken from them by AFSCME and MAPE and we’re suing to get that money back,” said Patrick Hughes, president and co-founder of the Liberty Justice Center. “Unions around the country have been playing this same game for years, and AFSCME and MAPE need to be held accountable because they violated the U.S. Constitution by taking money from public workers who weren’t union members. Liberty Justice Center is representing these public employees so that their hard-earned money is back in their pockets where it belongs.”

“It’s outrageous that almost two years after the Supreme Court ruled in Janus that requiring public sector employees to pay union dues to keep their jobs is a First Amendment violation, scofflaw union officials still refuse to give back millions and millions of forced fees seized from workers in violation of the First Amendment,” observed National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “The Foundation is proud to fight alongside the plaintiffs in these cases and the countless other workers across the country challenging attempts by union officials to continue to profit from their past unconstitutional behavior.”

National Right to Work Foundation President: Organizers in Right to Work states cannot be required to pay any union dues or fees to keep jobs

Washington, DC (May 6, 2020) – News reports indicate that Teamsters Local 328 union bosses have just ratified a union contract covering field organizers on the campaign of presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden. Union officials and the Biden campaign released a joint statement announcing the arrangement earlier this week.

In response, National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix issued the following statement informing Biden field organizers of their rights:

“Given Teamsters union bosses’ notorious reputation it is critical that Biden campaign staffers, who have been unionized without even a secret ballot election, know that despite what Teamsters organizers or their employer might say, they cannot be required to join the Teamsters.

“Biden campaign workers who work in Right to Work states should also know that they cannot be required to pay any dues or fees to the union as a condition of employment. Meanwhile, in states without Right to Work protections, while employees can be forced to pay some fees to keep their jobs, they have the right to cut off the portion of union fees used for politics and other activities not directly related to bargaining.

“Further, campaign staffers should know that it is against the law for either the Teamsters or the Biden campaign to retaliate against any employee who exercises his or her right to refrain from union membership and cut off full union dues. Biden staffers also have the right to file a decertification petition to trigger a secret ballot vote to remove the Teamsters.

“Over the years, countless workers across the country have successfully challenged Teamsters bosses’ coercive tactics with free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys. Biden field organizers, like all workers, should know they can request free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation should they need help challenging union coercion.”

Employees can request free legal aid from Foundation staff attorneys at 1-800-336-3600, or at the Foundation’s website at https://www.nrtw.org/free-legal-aid.

Complaint seeks to end scheme that blocks teachers from exercising constitutional right to stop union dues deductions, and to require refunds for all affected

Chicago, IL (May 5, 2020) – With free legal representation from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys, two Chicago Public School educators have filed a federal class-action civil rights lawsuit against the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) and the Chicago Board of Education. The suit challenges a union policy that blocks teachers from exercising their First Amendment right to stop payments to the union outside of the month of August. The lawsuit also seeks refunds of all dues seized as a result of the unconstitutional policy, which the Board of Education enforces.

The complaint, filed for Joanne Troesch, a Technology Coordinator at Jones College Prep, and Ifeoma Nkemdi, a second-grade teacher at Newberry Math and Science Academy, charges CTU officials breached the First Amendment protections laid out in the 2018 Janus v. AFSCME U.S. Supreme Court decision.

In Janus, which was argued for then-Illinois state employee Mark Janus by one of the National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys who is handling Troesch and Nkemdi’s case, the High Court struck down mandatory union fees as a violation of the First Amendment rights of government employees. The Court ruled that any dues taken without a government worker’s affirmative consent violates the First Amendment, and further made it clear that these rights cannot be restricted absent a clear and knowing waiver.

The lawsuit explains that Troesch and Nkemdi “did not know they had a constitutional right not to financially support” the union hierarchy until the fall of last year. While they were researching how to exercise their right to continue working during a strike that CTU bosses ordered in October 2019, the complaint notes, the teachers independently discovered their First Amendment Janus rights. They sent letters the same month to CTU officials to exercise their Janus right to resign union membership and cut off all dues deductions.

According to the complaint, Troesch and Nkemdi received no response until November, when CTU officials confirmed receipt of the letters but said that they would continue to seize dues from the teachers’ paychecks “until September 1, 2020.” CTU bosses relied on the fact that Troesch and Nkemdi had not submitted their letters within a union boss-created “escape period,” which limits when teachers can exercise their First Amendment right to end dues deductions. The suit reveals that to date the Board has continued seizing dues from the teachers’ paychecks and transmitting them to the union.

Troesch and Nkemdi contend in their lawsuit that CTU officials’ attempt to curb employees’ right to stop dues deductions with an “escape period” and the Board’s continued dues seizures both violate the First Amendment. The complaint asks the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois to order the CTU union and Board of Education to stop enforcing the unconstitutional “escape period” and notify all bargaining unit employees that they can stop the deduction of union dues at any time and “retroactively exercise that right.” The complaint also demands that the union refund the dues seized because of the unconstitutional policy from Troesch and Nkemdi and all other educators after they attempted to cut off deductions.

“Once again, teacher union officials are violating the First Amendment Janus rights of teachers they claim to represent just so they can keep the teachers’ hard-earned money rolling into their union’s coffers,” observed National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “The Foundation is proud to stand with Ms. Troesch and Ms. Nkemdi, and will continue to defend all educators who simply want to serve their students and community without being forced to subsidize union activities.”

Union officials misled employees, continue to unlawfully take full dues from nonmembers

Las Vegas, NV (May 1, 2020) – A Las Vegas security guard is charging the International Union of Security, Police, and Fire Professionals of America (SPFPA) with seizing union dues from him and his coworkers in violation of their legal rights. His charge was filed at Region 28 of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), based in Phoenix, with free legal aid from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys.

According to the charge by guard Justin Stephens, SPFPA officials extended the monopoly bargaining contract with Stephens’ employer, North American Security, on January 31, 2020. The extension occurred one day after Stephens and his fellow employees sent letters to the union stating that they no longer wanted it as a bargaining agent in their workplace.

The charge explains that Stephens later submitted a batch of letters to SPFPA officials in which he and his fellow employees tried to exercise their rights to resign union membership and stop dues deductions from their paychecks. These letters were sent just before the previous contract between North American Security and the SPFPA was supposed to expire, on March 31, within the period when the employees could stop dues deductions. Because Nevada has enacted Right to Work protections for its employees, union bosses are forbidden from requiring any employee to join or pay dues or fees to a union as a condition of employment.

The charge asserts that the union “did not acknowledge the timely revocation the employees made on the anniversary” of the contract, ostensibly because the union officials’ hurried contract extension eliminated any opportunity the employees had to cut off union dues in anticipation of the contract’s March 31 expiration.

SPFPA bosses are still collecting full union dues “from all non-member bargaining unit employees” in violation of their right under the National Labor Relations Act to refrain from all union activities and support, according to the charge. The charge also calls the sudden extension of the monopoly bargaining contract after the workers notified the union about their opposition “an apparent attempt to avoid a decertification” vote to remove the union.

“It is beyond outrageous that SPFPA bosses believe they can play deceptive games with the workers they claim to represent, pretending to care about the employees’ input only to turn around and violate their individual rights,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “These SPFPA union bosses have demonstrated that they care far more about their ability to illegally extort forced dues from those employees than respect their rights not to fund a union of which they disapprove and to free choice of a workplace representative.”

“This case demonstrates why it is time for the NLRB to eliminate non-statutory policies that let union bosses block employees’ right to vote out a union,” Mix added. “Here the union bosses’ rush to agree to a contract appears to be motivated entirely by their desire to trap workers in dues payments and union control despite overwhelming opposition to the union.”